Saturday 29 December 2012

Poem by Eva Gerlach from 'Situaties' (2007)


HELLEBOSCH, 5

Someone sings in the house behind doors that are five,
walls that are ten centimetres, bawling,
bellowing, someone scrubs herself bare, lets
air loose everywhere. In pipes and against

tiles, window-panes and thing contrary to
floor what you call? then an echo,
a whistling proceeds, a resonance audible
even in hearths and in logs, sweeping via

chimney flue over beeches, puff balls, sawdust
of guile bug, woe beetle, tumbling on cabbages and
ricocheting against village eardrums. Other than

this song soon nothing will exist. Drum, air,
on the skin round death in the fruit, fair
bursting out of its peel, so. Hours so. Days.

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